Party Strategy Guide

[bkelly1984]

Hail Lurkers,

At long last, I've started. After much frustration with uncoordinated groups I finally took the plunge and started to compile all the good thinking I've been reading on this forum. I now have a rough draft of a party strategy guide and I would value everyone's input.

Since the document is already quite large and I'm sure will need significant revisions, I posted it on the web. You can read it at:

http://www.phantasia4.com/ps/index.html

Please forgive the writing style problems as it's been most difficult just getting everything down. I'm mainly looking for high level strategy that I missed or could do better. I'd rather avoid specific tactics unless they're critical to the big picture. I especially need input from rogues, warlocks, druids and shamen as I have little experience with those classes. If you'd like to contribute additions or rewite sections, I will give credit and include what I can.

Thanks in advance,

Brian

[Brista]

Terrific job

I've not had time to take all of it in but one observation so far is that some of the direction seems too specific

For instance:

These roles are party leader, puller, assistee, tank, secondary tank, healer and secondary healer

Not all of these roles are necessary. I think tank + healer + any 3 is the basic requirement and a lot of instances can be run with an even less optimal group.

Moreover giving people overly specific jobs can reduce the effectiveness of the units. If there are 3 healers I'd prefer one main healer and the other two keeping alert to a main healer, a secondary healer and a "I don't look at life bars" guy

Also, a minor nit there: assistee is usually called Main Assist. In fact I'd not heard the term assistee used for this role before

Edit: just spotted a rather glaring error:

Only priests, druids and paladins can be healers as they have healing talents

1) Shamans can also heal
2) It's healing skills, not healing talents, that allow classes to heal
3) Hunters can at a pinch main heal, provided the others don't pull aggro off the pet. I've done this several times in instances where the healer left or died. I wouldn't put together a group like this since anyone else getting aggro is doomed and the group has no resser but when I've needed to do this it's surprisingly effective. Certainly good enough for minor instance bosses
4) Warlocks have healing skills too but warlock main healers are truly for the experimentally minded. We did consider it for our gnome-only group but wimped out and added a human priest instead. Wouldn't surprise me at all if someone here has a Warlock main healer character

[Treesh]

In the damage dealing section, it should not be the puller who calls for the AoE to start, but the tank. The tank will know better than the puller when he/she has locked down aggro on multiple mobs. Just because you are going to get multiple "trash" mobs on a pull, does not mean it's best for the group to start with AoE right off the bat. If you allow the tank to call for AoE to be used, there is less chance of your AoErs getting swarmed so hard that the healer can't keep up the healing on them. The puller can say "be ready to AoE after the pull", but the actual call to AoE should come from the tank.

[Drasca]

Wouldn't surprise me at all if someone here has a Warlock main healer character
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Not quite. Four locks and shammy in DM west and East, everyone soulstoned themselves. Extremely fun times, as everything died fast. I have great screenshots of 4 hellfires pulsing at the same time too.

It was especially fun because we summoned the dreadsteed event in DM west. Four locks working on their weapon skills against imps while enslaving all felguards around against a dreadlord and his mighty steed knocking all of us around. Sooooo much fun.


Needless to say, there was plenty of shadow damage thrown around and independence day level fireworks sparkling while enemies fell at our feet.

[Kevin]

In the damage dealing section, it should not be the puller who calls for the AoE to start, but the tank.  The tank will know better than the puller when he/she has locked down aggro on multiple mobs.  Just because you are going to get multiple "trash" mobs on a pull, does not mean it's best for the group to start with AoE right off the bat.  If you allow the tank to call for AoE to be used, there is less chance of your AoErs getting swarmed so hard that the healer can't keep up the healing on them.  The puller can say "be ready to AoE after the pull", but the actual call to AoE should come from the tank.
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I agree here. A good warrior can hold 2 and sometimes 3 mobs through full on AoE from 2 mages if given a little prep time. The hardest part for the warrior is if there are people who aren't doing AoE and still doing focus fire on a mob you want to stick around, that mob can often get pulled due to the extra attention the other mobs need to not go to the AoE'r. If there are some mobs that you don't want hitting the AoE'r letting the tank call for the AoE or at least set the guildlines for it if they know the pulls well is generally going to work out better.

There are plenty of times you can AoE without the caster of the AoE getting touched and doing this can greatly speed up the pulls. The tank will generally have no chance of getting a mob back and holding another one if one gets pulled from AoE and that is what will happen if the AoE is too early. It is also possible and effective to do slow AoE. It's the same idea as the healer aggro, the tank just has to stay ahead of the curve. This too, if done right, can result in higher DPS for the AoE'rs the mobs dying faster than if you focus fire, and the healer healing less. I will admit that these tactics are generally not considered basic and may not be the best thing to try with people you aren't used to playing with. They are also higher risk than other methods and while they are generally higher reward too you have to decide if that reward is better than the risk. :)

[bkelly1984]

Terrific job

Thanks. I hope the community finds this useful once complete.

Not all of these roles are necessary. I think tank + healer + any 3 is the basic requirement and a lot of instances can be run with an even less optimal group.

I agree that a lot less structure will get a group through most instances but my goal in the document is to give groups a good foundation, so I want to cover all the bases. Then a party leader is free to assign whatever roles he or she wishes.

Moreover giving people overly specific jobs can reduce the effectiveness of the units. If there are 3 healers I'd prefer one main healer and the other two keeping alert to a main healer, a secondary healer and a "I don't look at life bars" guy

I'm not understanding you here. I believe overly specific jobs increases the effectiveness of a party as described in "The Reason for Roles". I also don't understand how your assignment of healers is any different than mine. Could you expand a bit?

Also, a minor nit there: assistee is usually called Main Assist. In fact I'd not heard the term assistee used for this role before

Ah yes. I changed it to "assistee" for a guild member who found the name confusing, but later decided to change it back. I forgot that I had already mentioned the role. This has been fixed.

1) Shamans can also heal

Of course they can. They cause me no end of misery in Warsong Gulch. Fixed.

2) It's healing skills, not healing talents, that allow classes to heal

Thanks. Fixed.

3) Hunters can at a pinch main heal, provided the others don't pull aggro off the pet.

I don't think the ability to heal your minion makes you a healer. It's not a very strong heal and has no ability to handle rule #1 situations. I would sooner mention that anyone with a stack of linen bandages could be primary healer.

4) Warlocks have healing skills too but warlock main healers are truly for the experimentally minded.

I've looked for warlock healing skills and not found any. Are you referring to the minion healing skills here too?

Thanks for the feedback Brista,

Brian

[bkelly1984]

In the damage dealing section, it should not be the puller who calls for the AoE to start, but the tank.

Hmm, interesting Treesh. Let me ask you several questions on this.

1) Is this what you have in mind? Shortly after the battle starts, the tank calls for AoE which hopefully the group was warned was coming. Anyone with such skills runs to the front line and starts casting while the tank continues to build threat on the remaining elites and everyone else attacks the main assist's target. When the non-elites die, everyone returns to their position and battle continues normally. Sound about right?

2) In your opinion, how often should a group do an AoE fight? If a well-rounded group of five (one mage say) encountered 5 mobs, I think almost everyone would agree that AoE should be used if all five are non-elite. Would you still recommend an AoE fight if 1 mob were elite? What about two? Three?

3) I gave the AoE call to the puller because he or she may be the only one to see the mobs un-aggroed and have the time to check their elite/non-elite status. If the tank were to make this call, how would he or she know the number of elites that needed to be tanked?

4) How effective do you find AoE battles? I agree that they can eliminate an group quickly, but are almost always followed by a lot of downtime. Including downtime would you say the tougher AoE battles are 25% faster?

Thanks for the suggestion Treesh,

Brian

[bkelly1984]

I agree here.  A good warrior can hold 2 and sometimes 3 mobs through full on AoE from 2 mages if given a little prep time.

That many? I need to get into better groups!

The hardest part for the warrior is if there are people who aren't doing AoE and still doing focus fire on a mob you want to stick around, that mob can often get pulled due to the extra attention the other mobs need to not go to the AoE'r.

If everyone is following the plan, mobs lost due to focus fire should be no problem. It should only be the primary target and whoever took the aggro had better want it.

There are plenty of times you can AoE without the caster of the AoE getting touched and doing this can greatly speed up the pulls...  It is also possible and effective to do slow AoE.  It's the same idea as the healer aggro, the tank just has to stay ahead of the curve.  This too, if done right, can result in higher DPS for the AoE'rs the mobs dying faster than if you focus fire, and the healer healing less...  They are also higher risk than other methods and while they are generally higher reward too you have to decide if that reward is better than the risk.  :)

I thought saying something like "AoE'rs can use their abilities at their discression provided they never pull aggro and they never affect crowd control", but I decided against it for several reasons.

1) In the pickup group world, people AoE way too much. I think saying "Don't AoE (period)" will make people better party members than saying "Don't AoE unless..."

2) AoE makes aggro management much more difficult. Every arcane explosion is that much more threat the secondary tank needs to overcome when (not if) you make a mistake and pull aggro. I think this is what you're talking about when you mention higher risk.

3) In addition to aggro, a tank has a lot he or she can contribute to the party in the form of damage, shouts, buffs and debuffs. Asking the tank to "stay ahead of the (threat) curve" takes away from his or her contributions elsewhere to the rest of the party. I have no doubt that "this...can result in higher DPS for the AoE'rs" but I'm not sure it increases the party's damage and it makes the tank's job a lot less interesting.

4) I don't agree that the healer heals less in AoE battles. While I grant that the tough fights could end as much as 25% sooner, the party is taking damage from all the mobs the entire time. Remember in the "Main Assist" section the point that eliminating mobs one at a time cuts damage 3/8ths! Also, all that damage is most likely going to a cloth wearer who has less damage reduction and less health to lose.

5) I question how much time is saved with AoE battles. The mobs that are killed are fairly weak and would only take seconds to kill if they were picked off one at a time. Then these fights always seem to need more downtime afterward since both the healers and attackers are out of mana.

Having the tank call for AoE fights is not something I had considered. I have more to learn about it.

Thanks Gnollguy!

Brian

[vor_lord]

A lot of great stuff in here. Recently a couple of friends have just started and I like this idea a lot.

I do have a couple of comments.

For very strong single opponents like bosses, the puller may ask the primary tank to charge into battle. This allows the tank to generate more rage which he or she uses to build threat on this mob. More threat with the tank means that everyone else can use stronger attacks without pulling aggro, defeating the tough mob sooner.

First, this should only be done when a warrior tanks as no other class can build rage by charging in. It's also very important that the area be free from mobs as changing in causes the battle to happen in an area the party has not yet cleared. Finally, since this tactic attacks the stronger mobs first, it should only be done if there are no other mobs to fight or if they call can be crowd controlled.

In cases where the tank and the puller are not the same, I believe that charging by the tank should still be used far more often than just single strong opponents. Having the initial rage helps the battle go that much faster.

With just a little positioning and coordination, charge can be used on the majority of pulls. Many pulls are perfectly safe to have the warrior pull with charge. Other pulls done with a ranged weapon I like to have it be someone else, so that the warrior can still charge. The warrior positions behind the party slightly, to allow a charge that intercepts in a safe place to fight. Puller pulls, mobs come forward, warrior charges, demo shout, sunder, and the battle is on.

Another suggestion is to include more about how to handle pulls on mobs that attack from range. Breaking LOS, Silence, Counterspell could be discussed.

[Darian]

I'm not Treesh, but... ;)

2) In your opinion, how often should a group do an AoE fight?  If a well-rounded group of five (one mage say) encountered 5 mobs, I think almost everyone would agree that AoE should be used if all five are non-elite.  Would you still recommend an AoE fight if 1 mob were elite?  What about two?  Three?[right][snapback]84607[/snapback][/right]

All depends on the fight, the type of mobs, and the party composition.

3) I gave the AoE call to the puller because he or she may be the only one to see the mobs un-aggroed and have the time to check their elite/non-elite status.  If the tank were to make this call, how would he or she know the number of elites that needed to be tanked?

You should know the composition of the pull before the group is pulled, not trying to figure out what's elite and not elite during the fight. The only time this isn't feasible is when you get an accidental pull or adds, in which case... you don't have an active puller anyway. The tank should already have the elite(s) in his sights at the pull, and should be focusing on them exclusively (using AoE aggro generation to delay the departure of the non-elites).

[Brista]

I believe overly specific jobs increases the effectiveness of a party as described in "The Reason for Roles".  I also don't understand how your assignment of healers is any different than mine.  Could you expand a bit?

I guess it comes from spending a lot of time in really bad parties. Some people, most often when using hybrids (druids, shamans, paladins) will let the healers run out of mana, watch the tank drop, watch the healer go next, and watch the rest drop one by one in a close fight, despite having a full mana bar. If challenged after they say something like "why didn't you tell me I needed to heal?" If the group has 3 healers I prefer all of them to look at the lifebars and mana bars. If you appoint them main healer, secondary healer and secondary tank some players will play it as main healer, someone who stands around not doing much waiting for the healer to run out of mana and someone who never heals under any circumstances

I'm a big fan of the hybrid role in a tactical sense. A player who can spot when he/she needs to heal, can dish out damage and can round up loose mobs and is tough enough to get pounded on for a while after taking aggro and steering them to the main tank. Essentially hybrids are the group's flexibility, allowing it to change from a tank + healer + 3 dps set-up to a tank + dps + 3 healer set-up or a 2 tanks + dps + 2 healer set up as required by the situation

If you tell people that they are "secondary healer" or "secondary tank" I think some people would take that as licence to be a lot less effective than a well-played hybrid. Maybe I've just met a lot of tactically naive players. But in any event my concern is that if you tell a hybrid to do one task and not the others you relegate them to simply being a bad specialist if the person takes you too literally. If all your Druid is going to do during your run is tank in bear-form, why not get a second Warrior instead?

I don't think the ability to heal your minion makes you a healer.  It's not a very strong heal and has no ability to handle rule #1 situations.  I would sooner mention that anyone with a stack of linen bandages could be primary healer.

I think you under-estimate the effectiveness. If all the damage goes to the pet and you can cope then you are healing all the damage the party is taking. Our priest left us in Uldaman and our 4 man group could operate like this without being over-levelled. It's a reasonably strong heal and you handle rule #1 by having the pet Growl. In any event it allowed us to continue with content that we couldn't have possibly soloed or done without some kind of healing. It certainly beats bandages

Still, I think within any definition of the term "healer", hunters don't really count. We can't heal player tanks. It is a useful string to our bow though. In groups where we have one main healer and no secondary healer the hunter can help the group through tough fights by drawing some of the aggro onto the pet and healing the pet, effectively acting as an extra healer without gaining the ability to heal the tank. In other words if you're not going to get through the fight with just one healer, the hunter's ability to do this should not be dismissed

I've looked for warlock healing skills and not found any.  Are you referring to the minion healing skills here too?

Heh, this is even more extreme, I basically meant trading them healthstones during the fight. Plus the pet heal.

[Concillian]

If everyone is following the plan, mobs lost due to focus fire should be no problem. It should only be the primary target and whoever took the aggro had better want it.

Agreed. If the mob is getting AoEd AND the single damage people are focus firing, it will be dead fast, likely before whoever stole it needs healing. This should be of little concern unless the tank needs the rage of those hits, which is unlikely.

[quote3) In addition to aggro, a tank has a lot he or she can contribute to the party in the form of damage, shouts, buffs and debuffs. Asking the tank to "stay ahead of the (threat) curve" takes away from his or her contributions elsewhere to the rest of the party. I have no doubt that "this...can result in higher DPS for the AoE'rs" but I'm not sure it increases the party's damage and it makes the tank's job a lot less interesting.[/quote]

In the case of AoEs, the tank adds damage to the party by allowing the AoE to happen. I met one warrior who preferred to charge into a 5 pull ALONE, everyone else would wait for 2 greater heals, then open up with AoE and focus fire. That was a fast instance. The warrior takes a lot of damage in the beginning, but that also generates tons of rage. He could lock down aggro through the WHOLE pull even under AoE.

5) I question how much time is saved with AoE battles. The mobs that are killed are fairly weak and would only take seconds to kill if they were picked off one at a time. Then these fights always seem to need more downtime afterward since both the healers and attackers are out of mana.

In the later instances casters are pretty much drinking every pull either way. The time spent drinking is time for the warrior and/or rogue to spend surveying and communicating about the next pull.

There is more than one way to go about pulls. what method you use is situational. The largest single factor is your tank. What he is most comfortable with is often the best choice. Provided what he is most comfortable with isn't attacking one target in battle stance.

[Kevin]

That many?  I need to get into better groups!
If everyone is following the plan, mobs lost due to focus fire should be no problem. 

Depending on the prep time allowed it can be even more as Concillian shows in a later post. The group has to know what is going on. As I mentioned. If you pull and get one swing on the primary target then AoE starts the tank can't hold anything but the one mob. But let him get a sunder on 2 or 3 mobs (which happens fast with the extra damage coming in) and more mobs can be held.

The problem with mobs lost to focus fire in an AoE situation is when they are lost to a ranged attacker (generally a hunter and not a rogue, paladin or other melee class). Depending on the mobs the hunter sticking with focus fire as opposed to weak AoE may be the better choice. That mob running out to the hunter takes it from the AoE damage zone and causes extra healing. A rogue, warrior, paladin, shaman, or anyone else up in melee range taking it doesn't matter.

1) In the pickup group world, people AoE way too much.  I think saying "Don't AoE (period)" will make people better party members than saying "Don't AoE unless..."

2) AoE makes aggro management much more difficult.  Every arcane explosion is that much more threat the secondary tank needs to overcome when (not if) you make a mistake and pull aggro.  I think this is what you're talking about when you mention higher risk.

Agreed. The party needs to know what is going on better with AoE and this is much harder to do in pick-up situations. #2 is what I'm refering to in the higher risk section. You also have the risk of a sheep wandering into AoE, position so you can use both is more difficult, etc, etc.

3) In addition to aggro, a tank has a lot he or she can contribute to the party in the form of damage, shouts, buffs and debuffs.  Asking the tank to "stay ahead of the (threat) curve" takes away from his or her contributions elsewhere to the rest of the party.  I have no doubt that "this...can result in higher DPS for the AoE'rs" but I'm not sure it increases the party's damage and it makes the tank's job a lot less interesting.

The warrior is still going to be doing this. Dem shout will be up, damage will go down some sure, but battle shout can still generally be applied or still be up from the last fight. The debuffs may not stack as high but will still put out there since they are a primary aggro tool. The high DPS for the AoE'r can mean higher DPS for mages, locks, shaman, hunters. No reduction in DPS for anyone but the tank really. I don't see how it makes a tanks job less interesting. Holding one mob that is getting damage and one or two that aren't is pretty damn simple as well as pretty simple. Holding 2, 3, or more mobs through an AoE is not simple, and requires very good timing and mob switch. Remember I'm not talking an AoE pull were most of the crap is beating on the AoE caster, I'm talking about an AoE pull where stuff is still beating on the tank or you do everything you can to delay what does hit the caster.

4) I don't agree that the healer heals less in AoE battles.  While I grant that the tough fights could end as much as 25% sooner, the party is taking damage from all the mobs the entire time.  Remember in the "Main Assist" section the point that eliminating mobs one at a time cuts damage 3/8ths!  Also, all that damage is most likely going to a cloth wearer who has less damage reduction and less health to lose.

In an AoE pull where things are beating on the caster more healing is done. In an AoE pull where things are beating on the tank it's a toss up. With my gear, 2 mostly melee damage elites hitting me takes a renew to keep up with so if those things get AoE'd down I really take no more healing than just one hitting me because renew will be cast at the same frequency most likely. This depends on party composition as well. But again I was talking about some more specific situations. I'm not talking about AoE'ing everything.

5) I question how much time is saved with AoE battles.  The mobs that are killed are fairly weak and would only take seconds to kill if they were picked off one at a time.  Then these fights always seem to need more downtime afterward since both the healers and attackers are out of mana.

Depends on the group. If you have a warrior, priest, rogue, hunter, mage/lock you won't save time and you will heal more. If you have a warrior, priest, mage, hunter, lock you will move faster and probably heal less. Basically if you can apply 3 sources of AoE it will pretty much always be faster. 2 sources of AoE depends upon what you are facing. In high end instances as has been mentioned drinking happens after pretty much every fight anyway.

[Kevin]

A lot of great stuff in here.  Recently a couple of friends have just started and I like this idea a lot.

I do have a couple of comments.
In cases where the tank and the puller are not the same, I believe that charging by the tank should still be used far more often than just single strong opponents.  Having the initial rage helps the battle go that much faster.

With just a little positioning and coordination, charge can be used on the majority of pulls.  Many pulls are perfectly safe to have the warrior pull with charge.  Other pulls done with a ranged weapon I like to have it be someone else, so that the warrior can still charge.  The warrior positions behind the party slightly, to allow a charge that intercepts in a safe place to fight.  Puller pulls, mobs come forward, warrior charges, demo shout, sunder, and the battle is on.

Another suggestion is to include more about how to handle pulls on mobs that attack from range.  Breaking LOS, Silence, Counterspell could be discussed.
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Agreed. I'm a huge fan of the charge pull and it was a big reason I broke down and put points back into tactical mastery and anger management. It can be used in a lot of places and it can be used when someone else is pulling.

[Treesh]

Some others have responded, but I'm chiming in anyway. :P ;)

Hmm, interesting Treesh.  Let me ask you several questions on this.
<snip>

2) In your opinion, how often should a group do an AoE fight?&nbsp; If a well-rounded group of five (one mage say) encountered 5 mobs, I think almost everyone would agree that AoE should be used if all five are non-elite.&nbsp; Would you still recommend an AoE fight if 1 mob were elite?&nbsp; What about two?&nbsp; Three?

3) I gave the AoE call to the puller because he or she may be the only one to see the mobs un-aggroed and have the time to check their elite/non-elite status.&nbsp; If the tank were to make this call, how would he or she know the number of elites that needed to be tanked?[right][snapback]84607[/snapback][/right]

I agree completely with what Darian said for these two questions. It does depend on group composition, critter composition and just what the fight is going to be. Also, your tank damned well better know just how many elites vs. non-elites are going to be in a pull. If the tank isn't the puller and (for some reason) doesn't peek at the upcoming pull to tell that, the puller must relay that information before the pull starts, but the tank needs to know more than the puller does about the upcoming pull. The tank needs to know what's going to be CCd, what's going to be AoEd, how many elites, how many non-elites that still eat the cloth wearers in record time (stupid demon dogs <_< ), is that caster going to be silenced. The puller and group leader need to relay all the information to the tank. To make this easier, it's frequently the tank that is placed into the leader and puller roles (unless the tank is new to the instance and someone else in the party is very familiar with the place).

I'll demonstrate why the tank needs to know the pull before the pull with a little story. My first raid ever was a Baron run, part lurker mostly pick-up. The puller/tank would yell "shackle the elites" and then pull almost immediately afterwards. Now Aleri, not ever having been in there and not knowing what critters were elite and which weren't, couldn't shackle in a timely manner because of trying to figure out what was elite and what wasn't by having to mouse over everything. By the time I had a shackle target, it was in the fray and getting damaged so no shackle on it. Everyone took more damage because that elite was shut up earlier in the fight. Now imagine if your tank had to scramble after the pull to see what was elite or not. The tank must always know what is elite and what isn't before the pull. Unexpected adds are another story, but for a pull, it's necessary for the tank to know.

4) How effective do you find AoE battles?&nbsp; I agree that they can eliminate an group quickly, but are almost always followed by a lot of downtime.&nbsp; Including downtime would you say the tougher AoE battles are 25% faster?

Thanks for the suggestion Treesh,

Brian
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Again, it just depends. In some cases, they are so the way to go. The beginning of UBRS goes much faster if you can AoE the hell out of it (yeah, I slipped in raid instead of just sticking to 5 man for an example. Still holds true). Other times, the only thing casting AoEs will do is get your mage(s) on the top of the hate list and then dead in very short order and at the time of mage death, all the critters are still alive. When in doubt, don't AoE unless instructed to though. If you've been noticing your tank having real issues with keeping aggro, generally don't AoE unless it's all non-elite, non-ouchy critters and you've warned your healer. ;) And even then, it's still a judgement call. ;) Most complaints against mages are because they are too quick on the AoE and aren't that good at judging when to AoE and when not to.

Back when Hit (warrior), Kaldralen (warlock), and Bristiana (mage) were little we decided to take on the pre-instance portion of the deadmines with just the three of us. We were pretty much level appropriate, maybe a little higher. I don't quite remember. We were big enough for the warlock to have the first rank of rain of fire though. :) Hit was a bit concerned about taking on the groups of elite undead without a healer on board, but he was willing to try anyway. We let him get aggro, lock down all the targets that came, we then AoEd the hell out of it. There were no deaths and even though everything was elite in there and quickly spawning, AoE was the way to go. Neither Bristiana nor Kal got hit that often when we were AoEing. Unfortunately, having Hit in front of me spoiled me horribly. I think he was also in front of Pepperi when I went into the deadmines with her, but it may have been someone else who was good because Pepperi could AoE in there too. The next deadmines run I did with Bristiana, the tank couldn't lock down the critters' attention as well as the other tanks did so I'd AoE too early and ended up dead. So I just stopped AoEing at all for the rest of the run, which didn't make me happy, but oh well. I had to learn that not all tanks know how to hold aggro on multiple critters that early in their career. Ruvanal informed me that Littledude wasn't allowed to AoE in an instance until later on in LD's career.

So, after that rambling, it's best to say at the beginning "Don't AoE until the tank says it's ok". If you notice your tank is just a tool anyway, be prepared for an annoying and/or frustrating instance anyway. ;)

[Ruvanal]

&nbsp; Ruvanal informed me that Littledude wasn't allowed to AoE in an instance until later on in LD's career.&nbsp;
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Much of that came because in the early game, not too long after the start of retail, most tank type characters did not understand and did not really proactice at locking all mobs aggro as soon as possible. There were also priests that would not or did not understand how they should assist in an fight that involved AoE, even when it was called out for prior to the start of a fight. In a run to Gnomeregon, the priestess on the trip would not cast PW:S or heal Littledude at any point on any of the trash mob fights even when asked many times prior to any of the pulls. It did not help that the warrior there in general also never seemed to use defensive stance, not try very hard to get aggro on the entire pull.

When faced with this type of support (or total lack of) for using AoE in fights; the only hope of the mage to use it and succeed is to have the full 5 point talent spec of improved Arcane Explosion to use once the mobs are up on the mage. Ask Sabra what it is like trying to use the AE skill without the full 5 points of talent for instant cast (and how many times she died because of that lack).

[Brista]

Some in depth nitting

Introduction

Onxya

Onyxia

We will discuss rule number one a lot because when it groups can turn ugly

when it happens

These surprised are normally benign

not sure what you're trying to say here. I guess these surprises are normally benign but since you're talking about things going wrong it can't be both wrong and benign. So possibly a logical error as well as the grammatical one

within it's abilities

its

a couple of tems need to be defined

terms

I have no idea where the term came from but it could be humanoid, beast or undead or some combination thereof.

I believe it started life with the early MMOs (UO and EQ). It refers to a piece of the environment that is mobile (and usually trying to eat you) as opposed to a piece of the environment that is immobile like a tree

We'll also talk elite and boss mobs

about

Boss mobs also have these logo

this logo

[Brista]

The Reason for Roles

They are normally given to adventurers but can be given to their pets in unusual circumstances

Actually giving direction on what you want the pet to do is very useful. Succubus cc is on a par with mage sheeping and Hunter off-tanking is a very useful last line of defence for the healers. If the pet owner is a newish player it helps to remind them to set pet to passive so it doesn't automatically go chasing after runners, mobs that shoot at the owner etc

but no role should be give to more than one member

given

Nobody should ever do the work of a role not assigned to him or her.

I'd dispute this. Intelligent players will adapt their strategies to the situation. Basically you're saying priests shouldn't wand (since they're healers not dps), warriors shouldn't Execute (tanks not dps) and dps shouldn't rescue the healer. Unless you have foreseen everything that can possibly go wrong you need to allow people some freedom to make intelligent choices

If you have your assigned roles are well in hand

delete are

you're job

your

it creates confusion with the party members

for

you're job

your


That's all my nit-picking, but I'd like to add I really like the logical argument presented in this section. From the perspective of a healer weary from arguing with various dual-wielding tanks it's most welcome :)

[redinter]

First of all, let me congratulate you for such a fine piece of work. Its really nice to see such a complete guide on basic strategy.

I have been reading some of it and found a point where I must disagree with you.
Under Main Assist, Role Responsabilities

Any class can be main assist except Priests, Warlocks and Druids since they do not have reliable skills to hold runners. Classes with some armor and both melee attacks are a good choice as they can take aggro and keep the target on the front line. Ranged attackers or people who fight from the back line can me the main assist, but need to be careful not to pull aggro.

I must add here, that warlocks have THE spell to hold runners, which is Curse of Recklesness, this will make them not run away, thus being better than slowing them down. Also I may add, Druids have roots to prevent mobs form running if outdoors and in caster form. I may be even so bold as to say that if there is a warlock in the party, he/she must be responsable for runners. Just slap a CoR when the mob is short of running.

However it is my experience that classes who CC in battle like mages or Warlocks with succubus, which will be changing targets to refresh the CC, will do bad MAs. Same goes for tanks, as they may need to swtich between targets if there is more than one mob to be tanked. This is of course, because people will use the assist key or macro to see the target of the MA if these is just changing target because a cc needs to be refreshed, then the party may attack the wrong mob, or maybe just one person attacks the wrong mob, the rest attack the target the MA intended.

[bkelly1984]

If you tell people that they are "secondary healer" or "secondary tank" I think some people would take that as licence to be a lot less effective than a well-played hybrid. Maybe I've just met a lot of tactically naive players. But in any event my concern is that if you tell a hybrid to do one task and not the others you relegate them to simply being a bad specialist if the person takes you too literally. If all your Druid is going to do during your run is tank in bear-form, why not get a second Warrior instead?

Thanks Brista, that makes more sense although I don't think building less specific roles will solve the problem. If a tactically naive player is a bad specialist, I doubt that same person would handle a hybrid role better. I would rather a threat-ignorant Druid stay in bear form so his mistakes matter less.

I'm still inclined to keep the roles very specific so people know exactly what's expected of them so they don't duplicate tasks or step on each other's toes. If a party leader believes it best, he or she can leave some roles unassigned.

Still, I think within any definition of the term "healer", hunters don't really count. We can't heal player tanks. It is a useful string to our bow though. In groups where we have one main healer and no secondary healer the hunter can help the group through tough fights by drawing some of the aggro onto the pet and healing the pet, effectively acting as an extra healer without gaining the ability to heal the tank. In other words if you're not going to get through the fight with just one healer, the hunter's ability to do this should not be dismissed

Gotcha. I do agree that hunters can be very effective group members and don't get enough respect. I'll file this away in case I write an "And Now For Something Completely Different" section.

Thanks again for all the feedback,

Brian